BROTHERS —

The 130-mile stretch on U.S. Highway 20 between Bend and Burns is straight, just a few small, mostly boarded-up towns dotting the landscape.

One of those towns is Brothers, with a post office, a small store and not much else.

But look closer.

The roads are clear and the rest area’s clean, and that’s due to the work of five men who live in town on an Oregon Department of Transportation gated compound. The crew is responsible for nearly 100 miles of U.S. Highway 20; they’re the ones who keep the road passable in the winter and safe in the summer.

It’s not glamorous. Heck, it’s downright difficult sometimes.

But it’s a good job, and an important one. For the Brothers five-man crew and their families, it’s not a bad life.

“We live in the only gated community in Brothers,” said 56-year-old crew member Don Patterson.

ODOT has at least 10 compounds around the state; some, like Brothers, have employees who live there year-round. Others are only active in the winter.

The compound’s employees are in charge of U.S. Highway 20 from milepost 18 to milepost 104. In layman’s terms, that’s pretty much the straight shot from Bend to Riley. They’re also charged with caring for Oregon Highway 27, which runs up to Prineville Reservoir. That’s mostly a gravel road, but the crew does what it can to keep it passable.

The five men work under Keith Wells, who organizes them into two shifts, one from 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., the other from 6 p.m. to 2:30 a.m.

Under the system, the crew has someone on the road seven days a week. They’re tasked with keeping the rest area clean, as well as maintaining the compound’s buildings, machines and vehicles. They sand, de-ice and plow the highway, and keep an eye out for stranded motorists.

“They’re a hard-working crew,” Wells said. “They take a lot of pride in their stretch of the road, and they want to make sure it’s clean and free of obstacles. … They have an ownership of their section.”

Patterson has been in Brothers for five years; Rusty Smith, 45, and Tony Luelling, 38, have been at the compound for three years apiece.

Kevin Gower’s the new guy. Only 23, he’s been based in Brothers for about a year and a half.

They’ve all chosen to be in Brothers in part for the solitude.

“I’m just not a city person,” Smith said. “I like living far from town. Bend is great, and I can do anything I want to do there. But I’m outdoorsy, and I like the desert.”

Gower agreed.

“I like it out here,” he said. “I wanted to be away from the city. I don’t like traffic and all that mess.”

Traffic is not a problem in Brothers, but long hours can be; in the winter, shifts can stretch past 12 hours as the men work to keep the roads clear and safe.

But there isn’t an average day.

“It just depends what happens when you wake up,” Smith said.

In the summer, the group gets split up and works four 10-hour shifts. Smith and Gower work on a construction crew, while the rest are sent wherever the projects are. Last summer, that meant paving in Mitchell, Silver Lake and La Pine.

This week wasn’t a particularly pleasant one; with wind chill overnight, it dropped to minus-39 degrees.

“Our priority in weather like this is making sure that nobody’s broken down,” Patterson said.

There’s been no shortage of work. This week, many of the trucks that normally rumble past the compound or stop at the rest area found themselves stopped because the weather was so cold the diesel in their tanks was gelling up.

When the weather isn’t quite so frigid, there’s another challenge: people running out of gas. A sign on the way out of Bend reminds drivers that there’s no gas available for 99 miles.

That sign doesn’t always get through to motorists.

“It’s amazing how many people who leave Bend and want to go to Burns without gas in their tank,” Smith said.

The compound can’t give gas to stranded motorists, and to emphasize that rule, there’s a sign posted on the compound’s gate.

The sign doesn’t have the desired effect. Last year, Luelling was working in the shop when a man walked through the front door.

He’d jumped the gate looking for gas.

Turns out that’s not the best tactic, particularly since all of the ODOT vehicles run on diesel. While they won’t hand out gas, crew members will call a tow truck or the Oregon State Police.

And while it’s not technically part of their job, the crew often serves as first responders to accidents.

“It seems to me that a lot of wrecks out here are because this is a really straight stretch,” Smith said. “It’s boring, and there’s not a lot of lights. So you get those sleepy eyes and drift off, and catch a corner or something.”

When it’s not an accident or a stranded motorist keeping crew members busy, there’s a worse fate: cleaning the bathrooms in the rest area.

“There’s some nastiness to the restroom,” Smith said, as the crew laughed. “We’ve all had times when we’re feeling pretty lucky, and then we go in the restroom.”

Things start looking up again when it’s time to plow snow.

“It just gives you an automatic grin,” Smith said.

“And it makes the road safer for the public,” Patterson said.

It sounds trite, but the crew members seem genuine in their desire to help the people who travel along their stretch of road. They don’t expect much in return.

“It’s nice when people say thank you,” Smith said.

A few months ago, Smith and another member of the crew came across a woman on the side of the road with a flat tire. The pair helped her get back on the road, and she was thrilled.

“That was cool. She was genuinely thankful. She just had that glow,” Smith said. “She kept saying, ‘God bless you.’”

Who wouldn’t offer up a few blessings after getting unexpected help when stranded on that 130-mile stretch?

“I mean, you’re a long ways from nowhere,” Patterson said. “You’re probably thinking, ‘No one’s going to find me until the morning.’”

After work, the men make the incredibly short commute to their homes, which are spread around the gated area.

The group doesn’t get together for parties or barbecues very often.

“We’re not as close as you’d think,” Luelling said. “We look out for each other, but we don’t gather every day.”

Wells said the crew does not receive hazard pay or any particular incentives for living on the compound. It’s simply one of the requirements for the job. While the crew pays rent on their homes, ODOT spokesman Peter Murphy said they receive rent reductions for things like isolation and invasion of privacy.

“We’ve got good benefits,” Smith said. “My bills get paid every month. I make a living.”

While the men like their jobs and the solitude of Brothers, it’s certainly not easy, although in some ways, living and working on the compound isn’t as isolated as it once was.

Everyone has satellite television and Internet access, and several have Netflix subscriptions so they can keep up on the latest movies.

“There’s stuff to do, but it’s not blocks away. It’s miles,” Smith said. “There’s people out here. But a local is 30 miles away.”

Most everyone on the crew has an all-terrain vehicle, and they often head out to watch wildlife or hunt.

Smith lives with his dog, which he calls by spelling out the word. He’s been able to save money by living on the compound.

“I don’t fire my rig up for five days,” he said. “I’m not going to McDonald’s or to get coffee. When I’m in town, I’ve got to have my mocha.”

For those crew members with family, though, it can be a bit more difficult.

Luelling’s wife keeps busy homeschooling their 4- and 6-year-old daughters; Patterson’s wife is the substitute postmaster. And Gower’s wife is a full-time student at OSU-Cascades, commuting more than 40 miles in and out of Bend at least three days a week.

When she’s not in Bend or in her car, she’s glad to return to the white, one-story modular home with three bedrooms and two bathrooms.

Krista Gower, 22, has lived on the compound with her husband for a year. Three days a week this fall, she drove into Bend for classes at the OSU-Cascades campus. She’s happy to be in Brothers, though it’s not always easy.

“I like it, but nights like last night, when the pipes froze and my car wouldn’t start?” she said Wednesday. “It’s weird. It’s like we’re frontiering it.”

She’s gotten the hang of life outside town, though. The Gresham native will take most of her classes online next term, and she’s picked up an exercise machine for the winter months and a Costco membership to help with the difficulty of groceries.

“If there was a Safeway right here, I’d love it,” she said. “I can deal with not having a movie theater or not being able to order pizza. But the food thing is hard.”

There’s also a feeling of not quite fitting in.

At school, Krista said she’s an anomaly because of her life in Brothers. At steak feeds and poker games back home, the couple sticks out because they’re younger.

But it’s worth it for the peacefulness.

“It’s so beautiful out here,” she said. “You can see so many stars, and the sunsets. … It’s nice getting away. I wish I could go in (to Bend) less.”

Across a small yard, Patterson’s fence is decorated with twinkling Christmas lights. A few feet away sits the Luelling home, with a large Christmas tree in the front room and cartoons on TV.

For Luelling, the experience of living in such isolation has made his family closer. But as his daughters get older, he said, the family will likely move elsewhere so they can go to public school.

Angie Luelling, 32, said living on the compound has been positive, but she misses the convenience of city life.

“I can’t keep produce fresh. I tried those green bags, but they didn’t work,” she said. “It’s difficult keeping supplied. I have to freeze the milk.”

Her parents used to live down the road, but they moved to Boardman. As a result, Angie doesn’t have time without Jackie, 6, and Raylynn, 4.

But while there are challenges, Angie Luelling said there are benefits as well.

“We feel really safe,” she said. “It’s quiet, and we like being out here. When we were in town, we were locked up all the time. It’s nice out here.”